Optical illusions that rely on the human eye’s tendency to favor motion over detail (an important feature in hunter species), are quite common. However, these “silencing” illusions are something I’ve never seen before.
“SILENCING demonstrates the tight coupling of motion and object appearance. Simply by changing the retinotopic coordinates—moving the object or the eyes—it is possible to silence awareness of visual change, causing objects that had once been obviously dynamic to suddenly appear static.”
If my understanding of Human Vision is accurate, this works because the parts of the eye that focus on motion tend to work on “deltas”, that is they only see the changed areas. The human eye’s ability to see color is lower resolution, so when you have motion and color, the eye chooses motion.
Follow the link after the video to see more “silencing” tricks that include brightness shifts, size shifts, and symbol changes.
Motion silences awareness of color changes from Jordan Suchow on Vimeo.
